A lot of people seem to be scrambling to get their entries in, so we’re keeping the competition open for the rest of the day. You now have until 9pm Eastern Time today (Monday) to get your entry in. Don’t delay: Apply Now!

Sometimes people come by the gallery and introduce themselves and get to talking about how they’re planning on entering the upcoming edition of Hey, Hot Shot!. I’m always happy to put some faces to names of people who enter the competition. If I’m sweating a deadline, as I so often am, I might not be as attentive and engaged as I’d like to be, so it goes, but this kind of interaction gets to the heart of the matter for me: The whole reason I started the competition is because I really do love looking at new work and meeting and working with emerging photographers, and Hey, Hot Shot! allows me to engage in this process regularly in a manageable way.

Anyway, these aspiring Hot Shots usually ask me for some pointers about what kind of work they should submit. My stock answer is this “Think of it like a haiku.” Meaning: you get three chances to express something and although each expression might be wildly divergent from the next, there’s something that ties them all together. OK, maybe it’s kind of corny, but it’s how I see it.

Panelist Eliot Shepard was less corny and more specific in his very thoughtful post on the slower.net weblog, Advice for those considering entry into the Hey Hot Shot competition at the Jen Bekman Gallery. His post caused quite a stir a while back - it got Kottke’d and then in turn inspired another post on the Signal vs. Noise blog entitled Art statements, Pitchfork, and fancypants analysis, which was a broader meditation on “fancypants, look-at-me analysis has nothing to do with good art or good rock ‘n roll.” It was all good stuff, and the discussion threads on both posts are interesting reads. Jen says: check it out.

Also, and for the record, I’m not one for a lot of flowery prose when it comes to statements, but I do like to know what an artist has on their mind when they go about doing what that they do. It’s just about that simple.

These are the photos Jen Williams submitted to the Hey, Hot Shot! competition.

Happy Kens

Barbie Bakes a Cake

In her work statement, Jen wrote:

“My recent constructed narrative series, ‘Pastic’, takes on the infamous icons which have ingratiated themselves into our collective psyche, bombarding generations of girls and boys with their insidious vision of plastic perfection - wanting us all to believe that we too should strive for the perfect figure, the perfect wardrobe, the perfect home and, of course, the perfect man. To achieve anything less, they implied, was tantamount to failure. Plastic offers a glimpse behind the façade to reveal a version of Normal that’s closer to our collective truth.”

Sylvie Buchler Dolls

Sylvie Buchler grew up in Paris, France, and currently resides in Manhattan. She submitted her work to the Hey, Hot Shot! Spring competition.
She prints her photographs on matte paper and paints over the images with oils. Sylvie combines the immediacy of photography with the time-consuming process of painting.

Tres chouette, Sylvie.

The book that Andrew Long (Hot Shot, Winter 2006) has been
editing for the past two years finally hit the stores. It’s called Fotolog.book, published by Thames & Hudson. It’s “a brand-new collection of pictures by, about, and for the members of Fotolog.”

Here are some sites you can visit to get the whole scoop . . . or a copy:

The Fotolog website
The Fotolog.book webpage.
The Thames & Hudson link to the book info.
The Amazon link

Andrew Long Harbor

Jenni Holder, previous director of the
Edwynn Houk Gallery, was a contributing editor and has several photos in the book.
Both Laura Holder and Eliot Shepard have their own chapters in the book.

Currently, Andrew is working on a startup blog for and about Fotolog, which is scheduled to launch in June. Soon friends, soon.
Here’s Andrew’s Flikr site where you can see more of his work.

ALSO, Jen has been on fotolog for the forever, so check out her stuff, too:
jenbee
ollieotter

Spring 2005 Hot Shot, Rachel Sussman, will be in two shows this May. In fact, one of them opens tonight and will be up until May 23rd (the opening reception is *tonight* from 6pm-9pm); it’s a solo show at the galapagos art space in Williamsburg called Natural Selection.

70 North 6th Street
Williamsburg, Brooklyn

She’ll also be in a a group exhibition called Voxumenta in Philidelphia at Vox Populi from May 5th to May 28th.

1315 Cherry Street, 4th Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19107

Galapagos Art Space writes,

“An internationally exhibited artist, Sussman creates work that displays a stunning eye for the overlay of human and natural architectures. “My work is an exploration of man’s complex relationship with nature, and thereby, himself,â€? says Sussman. Sussman’s work has been shown recently at Jen Bekman Gallery, Photography 2005 at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, Momenta, White Columns, and was featured in the “Picturing Central Parkâ€? auction at Christie’s. She holds a BFA from the School of Visual Arts and has been an artist in residence at the MacDowell Colony and Cooper Union. Sussman’s work will also appear in Voxumenta at the Vox Populi Gallery in Philadelphia from May 5th through 27th.”

Since she was named a Hot Shot last spring, Rachel has also been an artist in residnce at the Macdowell Colony, was in the Central Park Conservacy Benefit Auction, Picturing Central Park, and was in Photography 2005 at the University of Chicago’s Renaissance Society. More information on these events can be found in Rachel’s CV.

Bethany Fancher submitted these photos to the Hey, Hot Shot! competition.

Rio Grande

Fourth of July

She has taken many photographs such as these of model horses from her childhood in found landscapes. She also makes sculptures and does the same with them.

See more on her website: http://www.bethanyjean.com.

In the spirit of the approaching Hey, Hot Shot! competition***deadline: May 8th at noon***, I’ll be posting photos received in the Spring submissions.

SIDENOTE: These photographs were chosen by me and only me (sidesidenote: I’m just a powerless intern boohoo) . None of the panelists were involved. I chose images I found interesting as well as ones that reveal the diversity of the work we have received in this round of entries. So, don’t be scared to submit your work. You still have a week to give us stuff. Well, almost a week. So, come on.

To start things off, here’s an amazing photo, pray for surf, by Stefan Simikich.

Stefan’s the co-founder of hamburgereyes. R-A-D.

It’s that time again - the deadline to enter the latest edition of Hey, Hot Shot! is upon us. The deadline for the Spring edition is next Monday, May 8 @ noon.

The competition has been getting lots of good play this week (and it’s barely Tuesday!) - first there was opening reception for jen@joe which features loads of excellent work from 2005 Hot Shots. You can see photos of the event over on Flickr: jen@joe Reception: Sunday April 30th.

Then, there’s that article in the May issue of Art in America that talks about jen bekman, leading into it with a description of Hey, Hot Shot! We’ve posted excerpts on the jb Blog, which you can read here: jb in Art in America’s May Issue.

Finally, yesterday evening, American Photo magazine posted an item on their website about the upcoming deadline: Hey, Hot Shot! Deadline Approaching. (But you knew that already, didn’t you?)

OK, so that’s the news, hot shot. Don’t delay: Apply Now!.